Chapter 2. Introducing eMbedded Visual Basic | eMbedded Visual BasicR. WindowsR CE and Pocket PC Mobile Applications


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	eMbedded Visual Basic: Windows CE and Pocket PC Mobile Applications By Chris Tacke, Timothy Bassett
	Table of Contents

IN THIS CHAPTER

Compiled Versus Interpreted Code
All Things Are Variant
Unsupported VB6 Features
Using the Windows CE Emulators
Other Differences

This chapter explores everything I've found that eVB doesn't expose or support but Visual Basic 6.0 does support. The list is fairly long, but don't let it trouble you; throughout the rest of the book, we'll explore ways to get past most of these limitations.

I've heard it saidand believe that probably a large contingent of programmers would agreethat eVB is fine for application prototyping but is unsuitable for enterprise-level or production-quality application development. This seems to come largely from the Windows CE C++ developer community, and the notion just isn't true. There's no reason you can't use eVB to develop a commercial mobile piece for even the largest enterprise applications. You must be careful to avoid some of the pitfalls, which you'll be exposed to throughout this book, but I've developed commercial applications with a high degree of success in deployment and a low cost of support.

eVB allows enterprises to tap into a large pool of Visual Basic developers and often into in-house domain knowledge. It provides for rapid GUI-based application development that, timewise, just can't be matched with C++. Of course, there are always applications for which C++ is better suited, but when you're deciding what development environment to use, don't discount eVB simply because it's eVB or because you may have heard that it's inferior. My hope is that by laying out all the unsupported items, you can make an informed decision about eVB's viability in your development.

Since the early days of Windows CE, development languages have largely been limited to C++ and assembly. Although this allowed for great access to low-level functions, it meant that rapid application development was difficult at best and the pool of available developers was limited.

After CE 2.0 was released, the Windows CE Toolkit for Visual Basic, commonly called VBCE, was released. VBCE was an add-in that used the standard Visual Basic 6 IDE and allowed any VB developer to write applications for CE devices.

When a developer new to the CE world first sees eVB, the typical thought is, "Great! I know Visual Basic so I can easily use my knowledge to create CE applications as well." Although a lot of the basic knowledge is transferable, it's imperative that you understand that eVB isn't VB. It has many limitations and nuances and often requires a completely different development approach.

Even with all these nuances, eVB can provide you with the ability to provide high-quality mobile applications suitable for use in most production environments. Knowing what you can and can't do, though, is the key to building a successful application.


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